The Midnite Drive-In

Saturday, September 23, 2017

This is my entry in the Duo Double Feature Blogathon hosted by The Flapper Dame and Phyllis Loves Classic Movies

Science fiction movies are always better when you place them in a dystopian future. Of course, that defines about 99% of all sci-fi movies set in the future. After all, how long could you last sitting in a movie theater where everything was hunky-dory and life was beautiful all the time. Personally I'd doze off after about 10 minutes....

Peter Weller is the star of several movies in my list of the top sci-fi and horror movies A look at his oeuvre of films shows that he is a prolific actor in the genre, The same goes for Nancy Allen. She had been in several movies before this role, some of which I had seen, but this was the first one in which I had ever noticed her. Both of these went on to do many more movies after the RoboCop movies, and I will list some other appearances you can check out later.

The chemistry between the two on screen is great. They start out as partners in the police force, but gradually come to respect each other.

RoboCop (1987)

In the near future (an unspecified year), the city of Detroit is in turmoil. Crime is rampant. A company called Omni Consumer Products (OCP) has bought the Detroit Police Department and runs it as a corporate entity. Officer Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is transferred to the inner city division and is assigned as a partner to Officer Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen).

Meanwhile, at corporate headquarters of OCP, a senior executive, Dick Jones (Ronny Cox), introduces a concept of a robotic cop called ED209. The ED209 is a disaster as it malfunctions, killing an executive. The head of OCP, called 'The Old Man" (Daniel O'Herlihy), is "disappointed" with the results. Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) immediately takes initiative in proposing his idea for "RoboCop", which would involve taking a human officer and imbuing him with a vast array of cybernetics. Jones is not very happy with the usurping of his authority, however.

On patrol, Lewis and Murphy chase down a criminal mastermind, Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith, who endows the character with MUCH more menace than he did as Red Forman on That 70's Show). Boddicker and his gang trap Murphy and literally pour an entire armory of bullets in him while Lewis watches in horror from a hiding place.

Murphy is taken to a hospital where OCP officials take over, and in the name of enterprise, convert him to the prototype for the RoboCop program. The faceless corporation (which isn't exactly faceless, per se, but you get the point) commandeers the former Murphy and makes him essentially a product owned by OCP. They send him back to his former precinct, where several incidents show that he is a superior force with which to be reckoned.

Lewis observes RoboCop do a fancy move with his gun and realizes that the robot has the personality and memories of Murphy, since she had seen Murphy perform the same maneuver. She approaches RoboCop and calls him Murphy, which triggers some memories in the machine, remembering not only his life as a married man with a kid, but also his death at the hands of Boddicker and his men. Meanwhile, Dick Jones has taken an extremely vengeful dislike for Bob Morton, and has his stooge, (guess who? If you said Boddicker, you've been watching just about the right amount of these kinds of movies) to kill Morton, but not before Jones tells Morton via video why... Because he's a mean vindictive SOB, that's why.

Shortly thereafter, RoboCop goes on a vengeance raid of his own, tracking down Boddicker and his men in an abandoned factory. He proceeds to extract his revenge, all in the name of the law, f course, since his directives (program) prevent him from becoming a true vigilante. Boddicker, in a panic, trying to save his ass reveals that he works for Jones at OCP. RoboCop arrests him instead of executing him. He then goes to confront Jones, but finds that he has a hidden directive in his program that prevents him from acting on his evidence against the OCP executive.

The final third of the movie is very entertaining as RoboCop and Lewis try to stop Boddicker (who was bailed out by Jones) and a final confrontation with the executive board which will make you stand up and cheer, if you haven't already left the theater because of the violence...

Which brings me to a final point. This movie is ranked as one of the most violent movies ever made. I think even Sam Peckinpah would have cringed at this movie. And surprisingly, director Paul Verhoeven's original cut was even much more violent. According to my research, it was originally rated X for violence, and Verhoeven had to re-cut the movie an astounding seven times before the movie review board finally gave it an R rating. Admittedly the movie is over the top as far as violence is concerned. The question as to whether it is worth it is up to the viewer.

RoboCop II (1990)

The movie takes place sometime after the events of RoboCop. Detroit has gradually fallen on hard times financially, and the mayor (Willard Pugh) has taken some financial assistance from OCP to keep the city in the black. But they are about to default on their loan, which would allow OCP to have complete ownership of Detroit. Part of OCPs plan to financially ruin Detroit involves the cut in pay to Detroit's police, which causes the police force to go on strike.
.OCP has designs to create a new RoboCop to help curb the rampant violence and crime in the inner city. "The Old Man", who still runs the company, has become a less attractive character by this time.and wholly desires the outcome of control of Detroit, and is behind the plans of Dr. Faxx (Belinda Bauer) to create her new RoboCop 2.

Her plan is to fully integrate a personality with the cybernetics and she seeks a willing volunteer to be the human portion. Enter drug lord Cain (Tom Noonan), a despicable character who is trying to engineer a worldwide addiction to his manufactured drug, "Nuke".

He is helped by his associate, a young kid called Hob (Gabriel Damon). RoboCop assualts the drug plant, where his programming stops him from shooting the kid who actually shoots him instead. The criminals then dismantle RoboCop and send him back to police HQ in pieces.

Faxx and company rebuild RoboCop, but they screwith an army of new directives which basically turns him into a politically correct dumbass. Lewis is frustrated with her new partner and tells him so. RoboCop uses an electrical grid to fry his circuits, which eliminates all his directives, then goes after Cain, enlisting the help of his fellow striking officers. They raid Cain's factory an in the ensuing melee, Cain is severely wounded. Faxx decides that Cain is the perfect specimen for her RoboCop 2 program and turns him into the new cyborg. To help matters, Cain has an addiction to Nuke which she feels will commit him to helping out. But Cain, still with part of his own personality still in place, has other ideas.

Once again, this is a violent movie, and as opposed to the first one, this one just seems to relish in the violence for it's own purposes. It doesn't have Verhoeven's touch to help it along so it basically just becomes something like one of those ultraviolent video games where the point is just to notch up the violence just for titillation. I recommend it only because of Weller's presence, and suggest that you avoid RoboCop III, because without Weller to balance the violence, it was just a mess of hash.

Well folks, that ends this session with the ballad of the gun. Drive safely. I end with the promised list of Weller and Allen movies:

Sunday, September 10, 2017

This is my third (and final) entry in the Movie Scientist Blogathon hosted by Christina Wehner and Silver Screenings

Sometimes the prognosticators of the 50's era science fiction books and movies were overly optimistic. Sometimes they were astoundingly cautious. In the case of this movie, it seems they didn't think too much of the possibilities that the scientists were discovering as they predicted it was only in the late 21st century that man finally reached the moon. (For those of you not up on your chronology calculations, that means they thought man would not reach the moon until at least the 2080's). But then they also thought that, having achieved such an astonishing difficult feat, that hyperdrive and faster than light drive was only a mere hop, skip and a jump away.

By the time the mid-2100's rolled around, therefore, we as Earthlings would be on lanets at the far-flung corners of the universe. Thus setting up the premise of Forbidden Planet, which involved a spaceship manned by Earthmen, heading to Altair IV to investigate the progressof a ship of colonists that had been sent out 20 years before.

Forbidden Planet (1956)
You think you know lonely? How's this for lonely? Being on a planet where the rest of your colonization crew has been wiped out, including your wife. The only other two companions you have on the planet are your daughter and a sentient robot named Robby. That's the situation for Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), who has been isolated on Altair IV for 20 years.

Morbius w/ Robby

Interrupting this isolation, which Morbius is reluctant to give up, comes a manned crew of spacemen who have come to relieve the colonists.

The unwanted crew

Morbius tries to warn Capt Adams (Leslie Nielsen [yes Nielsen did play some dramatic roles early in his career]) to return to Earth and not attempt to land, but Adams, being the macho male and authoritative figure common in 50's movies, ignores Morbius and lands anyway. Morbius sends his robot, Robby to meet them. Robby is a marvel to the men of the spaceship. He is as strong as 20 men and can do things no one would have believed possible.

Robby

Morbius tries to shield Alta (Anne Francis), his daughter, from the men. But she is an independent sort, and despite her naivete, comes to the fore to meet the men. Over the course of the film, her naivete places the men in some seriously shocking situations, including one officer who tries to teach her to kiss. (She's never seen another man besides her father).

In another scene she is swimming in a pool and invites the commander to join her. He tells her he doesn't have a bathing suit to which she replies "What's a bathing suit?". (Note: By this she implies that she is swimming naked, but unless the atmosphere on Altair IV caused he skin to become diaphanous, she is wearing something... I know... OK so this the 50's and nudity would have been strictly verbotten, but I can dream can't I?)

Alta

There is some invisible creature roaming the planet which makes its presence known and causes damage to the spaceship and also kills a few crewmen. However, when the crew sets up a perimeter barrier, the creature lights up like a Christmas tree, so we can vaguely see hat it looks like, and it is huge!

The creature from Id

Morbius in the meantime reveals a discovery he has made. The planet was once inhabited by a race known as the Krell which were thousands of times more intelligent than the human races best geniuses. Morbius has used their equipment to magnify his intelligence, but due to its power, it is only an infinitesimal increase compared to even the children of the Krell.

The Krell lab

Morbius keeps on insisting that he must remain behind, and the more he insists the more adamant the commander becomes that Morbius must come back to Earth with them so that he, Morbius, can convey what he has learned. And the more Morbius insists, the more violent the reactions become of the invisible monster that has been attacking the crew. It doesn't take the genius level of the Krell to see that there seems to be a connection.

Morbius trying to deny the truth

The film is inspired in some parts by William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Morbius has many of the same characteristics as Prospero, particularly in the devotion he shows towards his daughter. His sense of need for isolation is inspired by his love for the planet that he has come to call home.

A few familiar faces come up if you are up on your actors from the 50's and 60's. Richard Anderson (who BTW passed away just last week), as Quinn, was better known as Oscar Goldman on the American TV shows The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. Earl Holliman, who plays the ship's cook, was seen regularly on the TV show Police Woman. James Drury, who was the title character in the TV show The Virginian, plays Strong. And Jack Kelly who plays Jerry, will be instantly recognizable of the "Maverick" TV series as Bart Maverick. And if you look quick, you might spot James Best, who was famous (or notorious) as Roscoe P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard. Apparently this was a good jumping off point for the nascent television fame...

Some future TV stars

Well, folks, time to blast off into the wild black yonder. Be sure to watch out for any stray spaceships on the way home.

Saturday, September 9, 2017

This is my second entry in the Movie Scientist Blogathon hosted by Christina Wehner and Silver Screenings

Ray Milland was an academy award winning actor. (He won an Oscar for his role as Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend.)
It seems odd, therefore, that late in his career he was involved in
several low-budget sci-fi and horror movies. In the 60's, after having
left Paramount, he worked in TV and with such entrepreneurs of cheapjack
movies like Roger Corman.

Sure, Milland did a few major studio roles during this time; he was Oliver Barrett IV's father in Love Story and the sequel Oliver's Story, he appeared in Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon. But also he was in such grade B drive-in flicks like Frogs, The Thing with Two Heads, another Roger Corman movie The Premature Burial, and Panic in the Year Zero!, which he also directed, all for American International Pictures which catered to the drive-in crowd.

It
seems odd, therefore, that according to Corman on his commentary on my
DVD, that Ray Milland said in an interview once that two movies of which
he was most proude were The Lost Weekend and X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes.
(you really should watch a movie with the commentaries if they are
avaliable, at least once. For one thing, SOMEONE thought it was worth
the trouble to do it, and second you get some fascinating nuggets of
trivia you may not have heard otherwise.)

To be honest, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes is
a cut above the standard low-budget fare usually associated with AIP,
and I think Milland is one of the reasons this picture is better.

X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes (1963)The
problem with altruistic science is that sometimes it can go bad.
(and with low-budget science fiction movies, that's a relatively
frequent thing.) Dr. James Xavier (Ray Milland)is a doctor who is not
satisfied with the normal range of vision that a human has. He wants to
be better at his job, and as a result, has been experimenting with a
drug that enhances the eyes.

In
a demonstration to an associate, Dr. Diane Fairfax (Diana Van der
Vlis), he shows how a monkey with the drops in its eyes can see through
several boards and see the colors of each board behind the first one.
But the monkey dies in the experiment. Not from the drugs itself, it
seems; it dies because it can't comprehend what it sees beyond the
boards.

Despite
this, Xavier experiments on his own eyes. And as a result, his first
tests reveal he can diagnose a patient that his fellow doctor has
misdiagnosed. But doctors in movies being ego-driven people, the fellow
doctor refuses to accept Xavier's diagnosis and proceeds to operate on
his own diagnosis. Xavier causes the fellow doctor to be unable to
perform and proceeds with his own operation instead. Although
successful, the fellow doctor tells Xavier he will see to it that Xavier
is brought under malpractice charges.

Xavier continues
his experiments on his eyes, and at one point goes to a party. It
turns out that one of the early effects is that he can see through the
clothes of everybody. But don't get your hopes up, this was made in
1963, so you only get to see naked people from the shoulder up and the
knees down... :-(

During
a scuffle, Xavier accidentally knocks his adversarial doctor out the
window, and the doctor plunges to his death. Realizing he will be
accused of murder, even though it was an accident, Xavier goes on the
run. He takes a job with a carnival, where he is billed as a psychic.
His promoter is a real sleazeball played to perfection by Don Rickles.

finds
out the truth and induces Xavier to become a low-rent doctor who gives
people advice on their medical condition. And through these people he
is eventually found by Diane.

When Xavier tries to
dissolve the partnership with the promoter, the promoter tells him he
knows his secret past and will reveal it to the police. Xavier leaves
anyway, and the promoter shouts out the truth, which conveniently just
happen to be heard by the entire state of police, apparently. Xavier
steals a car and a long sequence of a chase occurs as he careens down
highways trying to escape.

I
won't reveal how the movie ends so you can have something to look
forward to if you decide to watch it. One final note on the character,
though. It seems that Corman's original idea had been to have the
character be a jazz musician who took too many drugs, but abandoned that
idea because of the need, at the time, to make characters who took
drugs be destroyed by their "lack of intelligence", so to speak, in
using drugs in the first place. Ah, the old Hays code...

I see by the clock on the wall that there's a spider behind, so I must leave. Drive safely, folks.

Friday, September 8, 2017

This is my first entry in the Movie Scientist Blogathon hosted by Christina Wehner and Silver Screenings

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is an homage to, and a parody of the science fiction movies of the 50's. If you haven't seen a lot of the sci-fi and horror movies from the 50's and 60's that were made on the cheap, such as The Brain that Wouldn't Dieand Teenage Zombies(both reviewed on here at an earlier date), much of the humor may escape you. Suffice to say, the stilted dialogue and over-exposition done in this movie is a direct parody of what happened often in such movies of the earlier era.

Larry Blamire and the rest of the cast may or may not be recognizable to the average viewer. With the exception of Blamire, however, most of the actors have been active in the film industry, and if you are like me and have a good memory for faces, you might even remember some of them. Fay Masterson, for instance, who here plays the scientist's wife, appears in Cops and Robbersons (a Chevy Chase comedy), The Quick and the Dead, Eyes Wide Shut and Fifty Shades Darker (the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey). Brian Howe, you might remember as one of Clint Eastwood's sons in Gran Torino. He can also be seen in Catch Me if You Can, The Pursuit of Happyness, and The Majestic.

Blamire himself is not a prolific director. He only has a handful of credits to his name, mostly in the area of the same genre as this, witty parodies of 50's style movies. (One being a sequel to this one, The Lost Skeleton Returns Again).

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

Filmed in the exciting new innovation of "skeletorama" (the jokes start early here...), the film pans down on Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire) and his wife Betty (Fay Masterson). They are looking for a recently landed meteor which Paul theorizes may contain significant amounts of that rarest of all elements, "atmosprerium". In the exposition leading up to them driving to a cabin in the woods we find that Paul is a scientist and wants to experiment on the atmospherium, because it means a lot to "the field of science". They stop to ask a farmer who is just standing by the side of the road and ask directions to the cabin.

Meanwhile, another scientist, Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) is hiking through the woods seeking Cadavra Cave. He encounters a ranger standing by the side of the road just hoping for someone to come along who needs help, and gets directions to the cave. (People seem to just stand by the side of the road waiting to be of help in this movie...) When he arrives at the cave, Roger finds the "lost skeleton of Cadavra" and begins laughing maniacally at his fortune. Eventually the skeleton begins talking to him and says it needs atmospherium to be able to come to life and take over the world, and induces Roger to help him.

At the same time, a space ship lands (it's only a model...), and two of the most naive and dim-witted aliens ever emerge, Kro-Bar (Andrew Parks) and Lattis (Susan McConnell). They reveal two of the additional plot devices that drive this movie; 1) that their pet mutant has escaped and is a danger to the people of Earth, and 2) that they need a special ingredient to be able to repeair their ship. what's the element? Can't you guess...?

The aliens overhear Paul and Betty discussing the meteor and it's contents of atmospherium. They use their "transmutatron" to change themselves into normal humans and show up at the cabin, where they pose as two Earthmen, choosing the names Bammin and Tergasso. Of course, even despite the obvious, Paul and Betty are clueless that something is amiss with their visitors, and invite them in.

A short while later, Roger shows up with a girl that he has made using the transmutatron to change four forest animals, one he has named "Animala" but introduces as his wife, Pammy (Jennifer Blaire). There are some rather funny scenes here as all of the visitors try to convince the Armstrongs that they are legitimately who they claim to be while each group tries to figure out how to steal the meteor. To that effect, Roger engenders a deal with the aliens to share the atmospherium if they are successful. (He knows the truth about the aliens, of course, having seen them use the transmutatron.

Of course, Roger has no intention of actually sharing, and when the plan works he reneges on the deal and takes all the atmospherium for is own purposes. He brings the skeleton to life, and the skeleton turns out to have some rather strong abilities such as controlling people psychically. The last part of the movie is a rather funny attempt to foil the plans of the skeleton, which includes marrying Lattis in a ceremony. The mutant plays a role in this, which is enhanced by the fact that the mutant has fallen in love with Betty.

Once again, if you are a devotee of these old grade Z movies which Blamire and crew are skewering, you will see a lot of the tropes that appear in them. But you don't have to recognize the tropes to be able to enjoy the movie. The best way to do so if this is your first time is to suspend your expectations of quality Oscar-worthy performances and just watch it as if it were a cheapjack film, which it most certainly is.

Well folks, time to climb back in my spaceship and head home. Drive safely.

I'm going to preface this by stating my political stance. I am pro-gun. I believe the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution gives each individual the right to own a gun. But you shouldn't define me as a "conservative" (or any of the harsher "liberal" epithets) because of that one stance. I define myself as a "libertarian". Which means I have the liberal stance on some issues and the conservative stance on some others, defined by how it affects my life, and my opinion that the government should keep its nose out of how I live my life as long as I am not infringing on a fellow individual's efforts to live his or her life as they wish (and vice versa). Your opinion on how to interpret the 2nd Amendment may differ from mine, and that's OK. After all that's what being an individual is all about. Just don't think you can define my entire political stance based on this one issue, because eventually you'd be wrong on one account or another.

Red Dawn (1984)

In 1984, Soviet Russia (USSR) and the United States were still staring each other down over the tops of their nuclear arsenal. The biggest fear in the US, at the time, was that Russia would instigate an attack or an invasion on US soil. (Conversely, I think the average Russian, at the time, feared that the United States would instigate an attack or invasion on Russian soil.) Most of that lingering fear was propelled by the aggressive nature of both countries. The so-called "Iron Curtain" that concealed most of Eastern Europe was a result of Soviet aggressive policy of invading countries and taking over the control and government of said countries.

At the beginning of Red Dawn the world is in the midst of turmoil. It's essentially already WWIII. As the prologue before the opening credits state:

-Soviet Union suffers

worst wheat harvest in 55 years.

-Labor and food riots in Poland.

Soviet troops invade.

-Cuba and Nicaragua reach

troop strength goals of 500,000.

El Salvador and Honduras fall.

-Greens party gains control

of West German Parliament.

Demands withdrawal of

nuclear weapons from European soil.

-Mexico plunged into revolution.

-NATO dissolves.

United States stands alone.

On this premise, the scene opens at a rural high school in Colorado. While in a history class, the teacher is the first to observe a bunch of paratroopers landing outside the school. He goes to investigate and is shot by the invading soldiers (which turn out to be a combined force of Russians and Cubans.) It is an invasion, although it is not clear immediately why they are invading a remote small town in Colorado. Even though it later becomes clear that this not just an isolated and randomly chosen target, it does cause a bit of confusion to the viewer who is uninitiated as to the objectives of the invaders.

Jed (Patrick Swayze) and his brother Matt Eckert (Charlie Sheen) are on the ball amidst the pandemonium that ensues. They take to the hills, accompanied by a handful of their friends, with a brief stop at a local gas station owned by a man known as Mr. Morris. He lets the boys wipe out the supplies in the store and head for the woods (or mountains, not sure which, since I don't know where in Colorado this takes place,)

Over the course of the film and especially early on, Jed takes the role of a leader, and a rather hard-ass one at that. But look at the context. These are just kids who have probably been molly-coddled all their lives (or would have been if this were taking place in today's society.) The community starts out however as just a sort of Boy Scout camp-out, (although with some rather more drastic supplies than when I was a Boy Scout.) Eventually however the canned food runs out and they begin hunting.

Meanwhile, back in town, the residents have been divided. The ones who are complacent enough to go along with the Communist occupation are allowed to roam free (mostly). The ones who are considered to be a threat (read: anyone who thinks the United States Constitution is more than just an insignificant piece of paper) are rounded up and put in detainment camps. This includes several of the boys fathers, including Jed and Matt's. Others, we find out, have been executed by the occupying forces.

Jed and Matt and the rest of the boys thus begin to try to follow Mr. Eckert's exhortation as they leave from a surreptitious visit to the detainment camp: "Avenge ME!" On one of their forays, they meet with another of the citizens, Mr Mason. He turns over two young girls he has been hiding out in his cellar and gives Jed charge of them.

The band of teenagers eventually become a crew of renegades, attacking isolated enemy soldiers and causing general chaos in the ranks of the opposing forces. The Russians do their own part as the bad guys by rounding up some of the dissidents they have detained and executing them in retaliation, but this only inflames the patriotism in the band. They call themselves "the Wolverines", after the mascot of their high school. (Sounds a hell of a lot more intimidating than if they came from my high school, which had Cardinals as their mascot...)

Powers Boothe has a brief appearance as a downed pilot who helps the teens in their fight. In one scene in which one of the girls finds him injured, she suspects he might be an enemy soldier. The brief query, funny in it's own way, either suggests that the girl is not as educated as she should be, or maybe she's just being cagey. I never really could tell:

"What's the capital of Texas?" she demands, in order to get him to prove he's an American.
"Austin." the pilot replies.
"WRONG! It's Houston!" she yells. (Fortunately she doesn't shoot him at that point.)

The second half of the movie is one big fire fight after another as the enemy tries to find and destroy the renegade band, while the Wolverines use confiscated weapons and artillery against the opposition. Milius is reviled by liberals because of his pro-gun stance especially in this film. I admit sometimes this movie does seem to go over the top. But the one point which is made, with which I totally agree, is that the opposition makes use of the files of registered gun owners to confiscate their weapons in order to quell any potential resistance.

Red Dawn is essentially a male action fantasy in many respects. While the mores of society have changed over the course of the past 30+ years since its premiere, and probably not as much a fantasy in the average male mind these days as it was then, it still manages to inspire a feeling of heroism and bravado. In retrospect it does come off as somewhat propaganda-ish, but it still remains a good actioner, in my opinion, and as I said, politically I side with the pro-gun sentiment, and I make no apologies for that.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

2017 marks 55 years of James Bond on the movie screen.
To celebrate this momentous year, I am undertaking to review the entire
oeuvre of Bond films, all 24 of them (at this juncture in history), two
at a time. These will appear on the 7th day of each month (Bond's
agent number being "007"). At the beginning of each entry I will give
my personal ranking of each movie and of each movie's theme song.
(These are subjective rankings and do not necessarily agree with the
view of the average Bond fan, so take it as you will). I hope you enjoy
them, nay, even look forward to the next installment. As an added
note, I am deeply indebted to Tom DeMichael, and his book James Bond FAQ,
for tidbits of information with which I am peppering these entries.
-Quiggy

Timothy Dalton was a success in two outings as Bond. A third Dalton Bond film was in the works when disaster struck the series. A lawsuit had been filed between the producers and MGM/UA, the distributors, of the series. It seems that there was some problems with how the company and the producers viewed licensing agreements which had been signed way back in 1962. This caused a lengthy delay in the production of the next movie in the Bond series, during which time Dalton's contract expired.

Whether the producers chose to go a different direction or Dalton just simply declined to renew his contract is a matter for the history books. But the Bond role was open again. Brosnan was he obvious choice, although serious consideration was given to Ralph Fiennes and, believe it or not, Mel Gibson(...?!). Brosnan had been passed over, if you remember, because of his work on the American TV series Remington Steele.

A new Miss Moneypenny was cast for the new Bond, an actress named Samantha Bond. (Is that kismet, or what?) Also the new Bond would have a new M. Not only that, but a woman boss. Judi Dench was pegged to play Bond's superior, and thus the only actor left to reprise his role in the series was Desmond Llewelyn as "Q".

GoldenEye (1995)

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the Movie: # 6

Quiggy's Personal Ranking of the Theme Song: # 18

Best Bond Quote: (The lead in to this one has Bond and his psychologist barrelling down a winding road when Xenia appears in her Ferrari. The psychologist says "I like a spirited drive just as much as the next girl.." and then spots Xenia. "Who's that?" she asks) Bond: "The next girl."

Best Bond Villain Quote: Janus: "Kill him!... The man just won't take a hint."
(A very close second is Boris's oft repeated "I am invincible!" (Which you find out at the end is not necessarily so...)

Best Weapon: Love the pen that is really a disguised grenade.

In a scene that it turns out takes place prior to the fall of the Berlin wall and the dissolution of the Communist Soviet regime, the film opens with Bond (Brosnan) working in conjunction with another agent, Alex Trevelyan, 006 (Sean Bean), in an infiltration of a Soviet military chemical weapons facility. Colonel Ourumov (Gottfried John) captures 006 and tries to lure Bond out of his hiding place. The colonel kills 006, but Bond manages to escape in a rather exciting chase sequence.

In the opening credits, the song "GoldenEye" is sung by Tina Turner and it was written by Bono & The Edge of U2. With that combination of talent, you would THINK that the output would be nothing less than spectacular. However, in my opinion the song is a bit cold and static. The Billboard charts for the Hot 100 would seem to bear that out. It did not crack the top 100 (although it did make the Billboard Dance Hits chart, so some people must have thought it was dance-able...but not me). In its defense, neither of the Dalton Bond themes cracked the top 100 either, but this one just doesn't pop for me.

One of the first things that will catch your eye in the opening credits is that Sean Bean's name appears right after the title. Now unless Sean Bean has an ego the size of Marlon Brando, and managed to get top billing for a measly five minutes of screen time, that should be a clue that 006 may not really dead, so Spoiler Alert (for the slow on the uptake)!.... he's not.

Nine years later: On a winding road Bond is driving with an MI6 psychologist (Serena Gordon). Bond is pretty much scaring her already with his driving when a mysterious woman in a Ferrari shows up, and Bond's ego refuses to let him lose the race. Narrowly avoiding a couple of accidents, Bond eventually lets the woman win to avoid wrecking into a bicycle entourage.

Later Bond meets the woman at a baccarat table where he manages to introduce himself and find out her name, Xenia Onotopp (Famke Janssen). His charm is pretty much wasted on her because she is only concerned with her goals. Which is later revealed to be a hijacking of a new Russian helicopter. It turns out she is in cahoots with now-General Ourumov to hijack a former Soviet defense system called "GoldenEye".

What GoldenEye is is a system whereby a satellite in space can fire electromagnetic that can isolate an area and cause an area to lose its power to operate all electronic systems within the area. The pair enter the Russian facility where the operation systems of Golden Eye is housed and Xenia kills all of the personnel inside. Well, all but Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming) who had "conveniently" stepped out for a smoke, and Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco) who had, fortunately, gone to the kitchen for some coffee.

Onotopp an Ourumov activate GoldenEye and cause the facility and surrounding area to be laid waste and put in the dark. At MI6 HQ, this event is viewed by Bond and the rest of those present. Bond is taked with finding Golden Eye and whoever stole it. He goes to St. Petersburg (the cold one in Russia, not the warm one in Florida...) where he meets CIA agent Jack Wade (Joe Don Baker), who apparently is now Bond's contact after Felix Leiter's disablement in The Living Daylights.

Baker's Wade is a bit of a smart ass, but I always have liked Baker's acting. He tells Bond how much he hates the secrecy, passwords and codes of the "stiff-assed Brits", but helps Bond get to a former enemy, an ex-KGB agent now nightclub owner named Valentin Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane). Through a bit of negotiation, Bond gets Zukovsky help him to meet up with the leader of Russian crime syndicate, known only by the name "Janus".

When Bond finally meets up with "Janus", guess who he really is.... well, if you read the half-assed attempt at a spoiler alert above, you've already guessed. It turns out that it's our beloved co-agent 006, who apparently DIDN'T die at the hands of Ourumov. Trevelyan was really a descendant of Russian Cossacks, whom history details as having allied with Nazi Germany against Russia. After the war, they surrendered to the British and requested asylum, but the Brits turned them over to the Soviets and they were later executed by Stalin . It turns out that Alex has been planning this whole revenge scheme for years, to pay back both Russia and England for betrayal.

The last part of the movie involves some pretty exciting battles between Bond and Alex, with the goal being to try to prevent Alex from doing the same thing to London that he had done to the Russian facility earlier in the movie. With the help of Boris, who is in cahoots with Janus, the suspense mounts as to whether the enemies just might succeed this time.

Brosnan's first outing as Bond is top notch. There was an attempt to return to the nonchalant quips that had been sorely missing from the Dalton movies, and many of these were a bit flat, but still, it was nice to get to see Bond's humorous side come back to the films.

Best Bond Quote: (I'm not passing this one up. Moneypenny is talking to Bond requiring him to report to MI6. He is in a romantic tryst with his Danish teacher. He tells her Goodbye in Danish.) Moneypenny: "You always were a cunning linguist, James."

Best Bond Villain Quote:(I'm giving this one to Carver's henchman. Read the review below for more explanation): Stamper: "I owe you an unpleasant death, Mr. Bond."

Best Weapon: That cell phone is a monster. I want one with all tose apps and gizmos.

In one of the best opening sequences ever, Bond is surreptitiously filming a conclave of terrorists. Back at MI6, the Admiralty overrides M's wishes and orders a missile strike on the terrorist conclave. Too late they find out that there is a plane with nuclear warheads on it. More than just a terrorist enclave will suffer. But Bond to the rescue, he does some Bond magic and flies the plane out...

You know what? I can't do it. I can't even BEGIN to give this movie any respect. Aside from that dynamic opening, the movie just goes down hill from there. Oh, the very beginning shows a bit of promise. A British ship is warned it is in Chinese waters, even though the British GPS systems on board say they are not. And a fancy torpedo controlled by some bad guys (not the Chinese) does some fancy maneuvering and completely destroys the ship.

But from there it goes headlong into one of the most ridiculous scenarios ever. Our bad guy this time? Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), a media mogul who is trying to start World War III. Why? For ratings, of course. He wants to be top dog in the news industry and nothing is above the line in order to get that position. Something similar happened 100 or so years ago when William Randolph Hearst tried to manipulate political forces to get his newspaper headline stories.

The movie even references this history when Carver compares himself to Hearst. But I don't think Hearst was the person the producers wanted the film-going public to think of when they saw this movie. Probably less than half of the people who went to the theater to see it even recognized Hearst's name when Elliot Carver mentioned him. Personally I think the producers wanted people to think of Rupert Murdoch, Fox News Media mogul. Hell, Pryce even resembles Murdoch in the film.

And a villian trying to start WWIII just for ratings? Please! Even Blofeld's plan in On Her Majesty's Secret Service seems intelligent by comparison. And how about that song? Yes, decent orchestration, but Sheryl Crow was probably the worst choice they could have found to sing it. What? couldn't they entice Shirley Bassey to give it another go? I'm sure it would it would have been thousands of times better.

Sorry to end on a down note, but you could always go back up and read the "GoldenEye" review before you leave the theater... drive safe, folks